Prologue and Birth of a Nameless Creature
by Helena Key
Summary: After Loki is wounded in the battle in Svartalheim, the Convergence takes him to the frozen lands of Jotunheim, where he is found by two Jotun strangers.


Well, I have always wanted to write something about Loki and his Jotunn brothers (specially with Helblindi) because they have never appeared in the moves. So, today I was bored and I had nothing more to do, so this came out in like two or three hours. I think that I could have done a better job, but I like it somehow.

Hope you like it too ;D

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><p>When the sound of hooves echoed in the courtyard, Byleistr muttered through clenched teeth and drew the curtains of wolf fur. Thanks to the light of the stars and to his knowledge of the courtyard, he managed to discern the shapes of the horse, the chariot and of his brother between the fogs. He was entering through the front gate. "Lingering in the woods during times of war!" Byleistr thought, bitterly. "Such a stupid boy…". He was ready to get in his younger brother´s way and ask for explanations, but he didn´t. Helblindi´s width, worried face was enough to make Byleistr forget about all the threats and complains that, at any other time, would have come out of his mouth.<p>

"What is it, brother?" He asked, concerned.

"Bring me a blanket."

"But, what-"

"Do not delay!" Helblindi answered, gesturing to the bearskin sheets that rested in the parlour, beside the fireplace. Byleistr turned on his heels and hurried to get them. "I´ve found a man in the snow. He´s badly hurt. I believe he was wounded in battle, sometime during the Convergence."

Quickly, Byleistr brought the sheets. His brother snatched them from him and went outside. A moment later, he returned carrying a small jotun in his arms.

"Here" Byleistr said, opening the doors of the baby´s room. Suddenly, Helblindi looked doubtful. The man´s body hung loose in his arms.

"Come now." Said his brother. "Do not worry about the sheets. We´ll deal with that later."

"Bring some rags and hot water." Helblindi growled.

Byleistr left the room to get the requested objects. Hesitantly, Helblindi got closer to the bed, and lifted the blanket. When he saw, clearly for the first time, the large wound that crossed the man´s back and stomach, he froze in place. Soon enough, his brother came back to the room, carrying a basin.

"He would not make it through the night." Helblindi said, stopping his brother in the doorway. "I believe we should not bother him."

"Don´t be so grim, brother! He should try at least." Byleistr crossed the door and stood beside the bed. Then he stopped, suddenly looking pale, as he gazed over the wounds in the small jotun´s body. He squinted with grime, and Helblindi took the basin from him. "Well, let´s get to work." He said, nevertheless, in a strong voice. Helblindi approached the bed, and carefully began to clean the tattered body.

He did make it through the night. He made it through the week too, and the brothers started to think that he was going to live.

He lay motionless and unresponsive, in the room they called "the baby´s room", without noticing anything, except perhaps the light that appeared and disappeared through the glassless window. He couldn´t speak (at least, not the language that they spoke) and his wounds didn´t allowed him to move just yet. He always looked outside, maybe watching, maybe thinking, maybe not. There was very little to see; some barren land buried by the snow, and Byleistr´s small figure in the distance, digging in the earth for roots and occasionally bending down to pick them up. Whenever Helblindi brought him food (goat milk with pieces of dried meat) the man ignored him. The small jotun was surrounded by a shell of silence and sorrow; he seemed unreachable.

"Is he getting any better?" Byleistr asked in the afternoons, and Helblindi always shook his head.

Ten days passed and something occurred to Byleistr. Five days later he told his brother about it, while they were having dinner.

"Maybe he´s just stupid."

"What do you mean?" Helblindi asked, looking angry. Byleistr made a rare gesture with his hand, trying to explain himself.

"You know, weak of the mind. I mean, maybe he doesn´t speak because he can´t."

"Of course not!" Helblindi said, frowning. He looked up from his plate, and saw doubt in his brother´s eyes. "Have you not noticed how he looks at us, when we enter the room? He´s not an idiot. There´s intelligence in his eyes."

Byleistr had seen those eyes. They were green, small; when it rained they looked gray. Sometimes they seemed empty (devoid of life) other times sad, frightened, or cautious; but normally they just looked resentful. His gaze disturbed him; he could say that much.

"Well, I'd like to hear him talk sometime."

His brother put his fingertips over his cup of tea, considering his next words.

"Do you remember when Laufey took the baby away?"

Byleistr´s shoulder tensed for a moment. He went silent for a few seconds, before daring to speak once again.

"Yes, I remember." He made a pause then, and closed his eyes. The memory didn´t hurt, not really; but it was still strange to talk about it. "The baby was too small, too weak for Laufey´s taste. So he took it to The Temple, as an offering to the Gods. We didn´t even have time to give him a name…"

"Mother started to act strange, after that. We talked to her, and she didn´t seem to hear us. We showed her something, and it was as if she couldn´t see it. It wasn´t something physical, or mental. She was just depressed."

"Yes, I was there. I remember." Byleistr said, not looking up from his plate. "... but Mother recovered."

"Well, she was never the same." Helblindi said. "But yes, she recovered. And I think that little man would recover too."

Weeks passed, and the torn tissues healed. During the nighst, Helblindi would always sit beside the man while sharpening his sword, to tell him stories about Jotunheim and the Days of Old. He was very tall, even for a Frost Giant; his skin was darkened as the night sky, and it gleamed under the stars. He had black hair and big eyes (red, like any Jotun). Inside him, there was a thirst for power and revenge that the small Jotun had felt many times before; it was radiating from his body, gleaming in his eyes, whenever he thought about his long lost Realm, and his Royal Blood.

For many days he spoke at that motionless, silent face, about the wars that had ravaged the East, of the years of drought, and of the time when Jotunheim had seen happiness and glory, during the Days of Old. He spoke of all those trifles he could never forget; the armor he used the first time he rode into battle, with golden ornaments and silver threads. He spoke of the day when King Laufey arrived to the Winter Palace after drinking a whole barrel of mead, with his armor completely broken and with a boar under his left arm that screamed so fiercely it could have "raised the dead". He read him some pages of the Prayer Book and told him about the gods he worshiped. He talked about almost everything he thought, except about the baby.

The small jotun never answered, not even with a smile. All he did was stare at him while he was in the room, or stare at the door, when he was not. Helblindi couldn´t tell if that was a significant difference, but he wanted to think that it was.

Finally one day, while the brothers were in the parlour taking some soup (the smallness they called _dinner) _a sudden hustle came out of the baby´s room. Byleistr looked at Helblindi, then stood up and opened the door of the room.

The man was walking feebly and awkwardly, for he was not fully recovered yet, and he couldn´t bear the weight of the amour he was wearing (it was the same armor that he had when Helblindi brought him to the house, he couldn´t help but notice). They forced him to sit down again and he stayed there, with a serious, somewhat annoyed look, until Byleistr removed the heaviest part of the armor and let him rise. The man crossed the door quickly and began to inspect the house, as if exploring his new surroundings. Helblindi patted him lightly on the shoulder and told him to not strain himself too much. He sent him a glare, ignoring him completely, and continued to explore the courtyard.

Byleistr didn´t say anything, and went back to the parlour to finish his soup. He felt disturbed again, maybe for those small but bright green eyes.

"And how shall we call him?" Byleistr asked one night, before going to sleep.

"Well, he is a grown man. He would not appreciate it if we keep calling him ´babe´" Helblindi said, almost without realizing it. They had decided for that nickname after concluding that ´the man in the baby´s room´ was way too long. Helblindi had liked it at the moment, perhaps for how small the jotun was; but as an actual name it didn´t seem appropriate. Byleistr only grunted in response.

"We´ll have to wait." Helblindi concluded. "Surely he has a name already, and it would not be right of us to put him another. We´ll wait. He´ll tell us eventually."

Byleistr tried to analyze what his brother had just told him. He could only conclude that the indefinite stay of the small Jotun in their house had become permanent in a matter of seconds.

"Oh, Brother." He said then, after a large sigh. "I do hope we're not making a mistake..."

Certain things started to happen, that Helblindi and Byleistr decided to call recovery, even if it sounded a little sappy.

Once, Byleistr found the man´s two strong hands on the other en of a tree that he had cut down for firewood, helping him to lift it up. On another occasion Helblindi noticed the man´s unhidden interest in bladed weapons (how he kept staring at him every time he saw him sharpening his sword) and soon enough discovered his natural talent with throwing knives. Once the man found a pit filled with clean water at the edge of the forest, and ever since then he came back there every morning to fill a bucket with it. Apparently, he was tired of the melted ice that the brothers used to bite to quench their thirst.

When he had been living with them for over a year, Helblindi forged him two throwing knives and for mere impulse, craved in the handle the symbols that used to adorn the Winter Palace´s gates during the Days of Old. When they were given to him the man fixed his eyes on Helblindi and then on Byleistr. He leaned forward, took one of the daggers and threw it in the air, so that it turned five times before falling back into his hand. Byleistr laughed (more than a laugh, it was that strange sort of giggle that escaped him whenever he was seen something unexpected) and Helblindi patted him on the shoulder. The man frowned, as if he couldn´t understand what was happening around him.

Something stirred inside him. For a moment his eyeballs went completely white. The frozen sorrow that resided inside him melted, flooding his insides. This was not the happiness, not the pride he had felt centuries ago; when Odin Borson gifted him two silver daggers to celebrate his first victory in the battlefield. It was nothing like that, except for the intensity of the feeling. It was more like sadness, surprise, maybe shame. Shame because he knew who these two men were, and the ways he had wronged them and their people in the past. Maybe it was something more, but he couldn´t tell.

He couldn´t help it; a lump formed in the back of his throat, and he put the dagger back on the table. Then, there was something new on his face, as if the bronze mask that he had placed over his skin so many time ago had finally melted away.

He did have a name.

After the night when he was gifted with the daggers, the man decided that he wanted to communicate with these men. The sounds that they called language meant little to him, though he could recognize certain differences between the words addressed at him and those that didn´t concern him. He never really learned to perceive words, but he directly received the ideas that were linked to them. The ideas themselves have no shape, and it was no surprising that it took him so long to give them the form of words. The language of the Jotun was, after all, something that he had never heard before, and that even in the future it would be very difficult to pronounce for him.

"What´s your name?" Helblindi asked one day, surprising him.

_Name. _What I am, what I have been, what I have done and learned. The hate, the loneliness, the loss and failure; there it was everything, waiting for that single symbol. A name. The man twisted his mouth and said:

"Loki."

"Loki?" It was obvious that Helblindi linked that name to another person; a person similar to this man, but not exactly the same.

He nodded at his direction.

"Loki." Helblindi repeated, smiling, and Loki nodded again.

It took him almost five months to learn to speak correctly, and he always preferred not to; he was already used to been quiet. He really didn´t think that it was something necessary.


End file.
